Two women, their golden retriever, and an orphaned kitten hit the road in an RV for one year of "pretirement"

Preparation

Launch date is Friday, March 6, four days away. My last day at Hewlett-Packard was two weeks ago. Kate’s last day at PeaceHealth is today. There’s no turning back. We are doing this thing. This last month has been so…

With our departure plans solidifying, we find ourselves wanting to fit in as much time as possible with local friends. So when Kathy and Robin suggested a weekend campout at the beach, we immediately responded Yes! And that was before we…

On New Year’s Day, we took our behemoth on its first camping adventure: three nights at the coast. It had been pipe-freezing cold in Eugene for days, and we drove past spectacular frozen falls in the mountains on the way…

This road trip is possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done. When you take a leap of faith, how do you know whether what you’re doing is an act of brilliance or a fool’s misstep? This trip could be the…

As I had hoped for, the final leg of our journey home was smooth and uneventful. Exiting Seattle on a quiet Sunday morning was a breeze compared to our bumbling entrance. I-5 traffic stayed relatively light all day, and the…

It’s early morning dark, and I’m propped up in bed after our first night’s sleep in the RV. We’re in Tobi’s driveway in Seattle, and the driveway wasn’t level enough to get the automatic leveling system to work, so Kate…

Now that we’ve purchased our RV, there’s no turning back. This dream is truly becoming a reality. We’ve been working on getting the house ready to rent all fall, but these last few weeks we’ve kicked it into high gear. Here’s…

For months now, we’ve been gearing up to list our 3,100 sq. ft. home for rent. Thinning out the collectables, making repairs and updates, packing up the extras. Our first choice is to rent the place furnished. After weighing the…

When Kate first moved into my two-room cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains 32 years ago, she came with a rocking chair, a framed print, and a lamp. The rental included dusty, worn furniture from the 50s, so my own…

Now that we’ve decided that this is what we want to do, we’re looking at everything it will take to get from here to the road. We’ve lived in this house for nearly a quarter of a century. We’ve raised…